highest in the year. investors weighing how rising yields could affect assets. a big freeze cuts u.s. daily oil production. permian output plunging. western australia scrutinizes its casino in perth, that following a damning report on crown's fitness to run gaming in sydney. a look at stocks at the moment. on the retreat generally speaking. taking a look at the elements driving things down. nikkei 225 1/10 of 1% lower. we are seeing the yen strength coming back, but only marginally. u.s. benchmarks slipping back, partly responsible for all that.

hang seng 2/10 of 1% lower. asx 200 in sydney 2/3 of 1% to the downside. the biggest faller, the kospi as well. generally speaking we have stocks coming back from records. investors weighing how yields could affect risk assets. the yield, 1.30% the handle on the 10 year. new york crude falling back a tad. this as the strength the dollar has offset the energy crisis. bitcoin also just up the moment, but retreating from that $50,000 level it did hit. let's get you back to singapore and haslinda and an exclusive interview. haslinda: we are coming to you live from the treasury.

the budget, as you said, in focus. singapore announced the budget yesterday which included an $8 billion covid-19 package. i want to bring in the finance minister. i'd like to invite our radio listeners as well in this simul cast. good to have you with us. thank you for joining us. the budget yesterday, a billion-dollar u.s. package for -- $8 billion u.s. package for covid plans. on your facebook page, you mentioned $107 billion, a number. can you put that in perspective? >> it will be our biggest budget so far. it covers quite a range of things, including the covid and resilience package for us to

emerge out of covid. the covid pandemic is not over, therefore we need to provide support in a targeted way to continue to help our firms and workers. haslinda: fair to say the r107 -- $107 billion is the budget for 2021. you mentioned singapore is looking at different scenarios. we are dipping into reserve for the second year now. what makes you think you need to dip into those reserves again this year? >> it depends on the trajectory of the pandemic. if the recovery is as we expect, then i think we should be able to balance our budget. if the pandemic is more prolonged or the recovery weaker than we had hoped, then the global situation will be different.

singapore is very dependent upon the global economy. at the same time, covid accelerated many of the big changes that are happening. it is important for us to continue to invest for the long term. we will then look at whether we should continue to use reserves to fund long-term investment. haslinda: having said that, when you look at this budget, have we seen the full extent of the impact of covid-19? >> no, we have not. the covid situation is evolving. the introduction of vaccines -- i hope for vaccinating a big part of the global population. that is why you find the global projections are quite good and we are likely to recover. but there is still uncertainty.

it depends whether the vaccination goes as planned. vaccinating a large part of the global population is not straightforward. in case situations arise that require a new round of vaccinations, those are the risks we have to plan for. haslinda: you talk about having to rebuild the reserves, having dipped into it already. what roles do you see the state investment companies playing? >> they will continue to invest in the way they have been investing. for both entities, they invest in a range of asset in a diversified way to give us real returns that will help us continue to grow our research, and two, to enable us to expand 50% into retail.

those roles will continue. our investment for growing the economy is separate work. it is a work of the ministry of finance to look at how we can invest resources to help our businesses to meet with major changes coming up, as well to ensure our workers are well trained, well skilled so they can take on those better jobs. haslinda: have you been satisfied with their performance so far? $17 billion, $18, do you see that sustained or them contributing more? >> it depends on our overall revenue position. i expect they will continue to be a major in tribute or -- a major contributor.

it is the largest single component of our revenue, more than corporate context in a single category, which is why it is so important for us to take our resource population. haslinda: their performance is contingent on how the market is. >> lack of volatility will always be expected. not long ago we had a financial crisis. i think any investment manager --[indiscernible] recent returns are always there. especially how do we have a better diversified portfolio? that we are able to ride out the market. haslinda: it was always in the budget that the green agenda is

front and center. you talked about green bonds. can you shed light on when that would happen and which projects would be funded by those green bonds? >> i made two announcements about the issuance of bonds. the first is for our significant national infrastructure, we will allow the government to borrow up to $19 billion for infrastructure investment. this is -- the infrastructure project will benefit many generations. otherwise we will have to raise taxes just to fund the investment. that is not right. right now global interest rates are very low. if we can catch that cycle, we will be able to lock in more long-term investment. that is one part. the other part is we are issuing

$19 billion of green bonds. this $19 billion of green bonds will be used for projects which are green. i mentioned a number of them. the projects relating to, for example, our plan where it will manage energy and waste in the second wave. all those are great projects. we hope it not only helps to catalyze the green bond financing market, but help singapore to promote green finance. it also complements what we are doing inn our -- in our r&d efforts. the future of sustainability has to be driven a lot by r&d into

more sustainable solutions and how technology can play a role in this effort. haslinda: some of your plans for the bond issuance is would mean perhaps singapore would never have to dip into reserves again. your thoughts? >> i think they are separate configurations. it doesn't mean they will never have to dip into reserves. as i alluded to yesterday, the ability of the government to finance the emerging stronger program was to get out of this covid crisis stronger. we expect the global economy and our revenue to recover. even if it does not, we must still invest for the long-term. these are major structural

changes that will come not just in the next year, but the next five to 10 years. i hope the business sector will partner us in this effort. if we have to do that, we will find the resources to get it done. haslinda: you raised prices significantly by as much as 23%. that encouraged singapore to move away from conventional cars, promote perhaps ev's instead. why has there been such a slow move to ev's, do you think? >> the technology has been rapidly developing. in the last few years we have seen more promises. it is important for us to look at the trends and areas. once we decided this is the way to go, we can make a more decisive move. if you start to do it in a big way and something else comes out a lot better, i think this is a

rational way for us to proceed. we will make a big push. haslinda: what is the strategy? are you planning to attract companies to perhaps manufacture ev's here or be part of the echo system of supply chain -- the ecosystem of supply chain? >> certainly the manufacturers of ev's, those who are involved in power, the small portable power. there is a singapore company, the first of it in the netherlands. they have been doing very well. those are promising areas for which we can continue to grow. i am sure there will be many more interesting innovations. a big part of my budget is also

devoted to innovation. we are creating new platforms to partner with accelerators, venture capital firms to support startups. we have this open innovation platform to raise issues with agencies, and on the supply side people working on this can work together. we have a corporate alliance. that allows us to collaborate on innovation with innovators around the world. i think we must make a big push for this. innovation and sustainability will be a major part for it. haslinda: what is close to singapore's heart is the property sector. expectations to rise within the industry that singapore would

ease the cooling property measures. is it prematurity to be talking about it now? >> it is premature. haslinda: [laughter] >> we have to watch this. the interest rates today are at ultra low, and in some cases even negative. this can lead to a significant repricing of enterprises and significant risk of investing in the wrong places. when individuals commit to buying a property, they are making a big part of their life savings in it. we want to make sure it is sustainable. haslinda: property prices have surged by 9%. last year it rose by 2.2%. is there a threshold before singapore considers new measures? >> i wouldn't tell you what the threshold is. we are monitoring this.

we have a team of people looking at this development all the time. we have developed a fairly good risk dashboard for the whole economy. different agencies are monitoring different aspects of risk bonds so if there is a need for us to move preemptively, we will. haslinda: in your budget you talked about how singapore's future is pretty much dependent on the global environment as well. we have a new president in the u.s. who is recommitted to multilateralism. tensions between china and the u.s. seem to have eased. what is your take on t he economic environment in the world today? -- the economic environment in the world today? >> it will be better. it is very important that president biden's team is

committed to multilateralism. it is important for us, certainly for singapore but many other economies, the globalization and specialization by different regions is an important way for us to uplift the entire world. we cannot be achieving our development goals and hoping to reduce poverty and helping developing economies develop without us all making an effort. what does this mean? and i hope it makes sense, we look at how we can collaborate in the future. technology -- if you look at what happened during the development of the covid-19 vaccine, the global collaboration has been very helpful. collaboration among scientists. it is not an entirely bad

development. what is aborted for us is that does not lead -- is important for us is does not lead to a bifurcation of the technology and supply chain. we can share lessons on how we all need to change. for the economy to continue growing, there has to be new patterns of specialization. we need to develop in a different way. there are many countries that are well-positioned to push further on innovation in technology. if we collaborate on those, it will be positive for the world. haslinda: what would the biden administration mean for its trade policy toward asia? how realistic is it to think he may recommit to tpp? >> we always had this view that

bilateral regional agreements are building blocks to a multilateral agreement. i am fully aware it is not easy for all countries to commit to one big agreement all of a sudden. the adjustments and each economy has to make will have to be phased. i do hope it can become building blocks towarwd liberalization. -- toward liberalization. i hope tpp can materialize at some point. even in the most immediate, i hope the u.s. administration gets more involved too in the region. there is a lot of complementarity between us and all other industries. if we work together on

development, it will be very good for the development of our partners. haslinda: what is your view as the biggest risk of the world today? some may say it is debt management. your thoughts? >> we are in a very unprecedented situation. following the global financial crisis, we had a huge amount of quantitative easing. in this covid environment, economists are quite divided as to whether it is right for us to have this huge stimulus or whether it will catch up and end up with inflation. the interest rate cycle has to turn. when interns, what will be the calm -- when it turns, what will be the consequences? the jury is still out. my own view is this is not just debt levels, but what the debt

is used to finance. if it is used to finance the building of long-term infrastructure, for the enhancing economic potential, then it will be a possibility. if it is used to go nowhere, we will have to pay for it at some point. it is not just the debt level, but what we use it for that is critically important. haslinda: we thank you so much for your time today. thank you. rishaad: coming up on bloomberg markets, we look at india's recovery with a develop mental economist, finding out what he thinks about the impact on gen der. new delhi rolls out policies criticized. the markets live team.

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rishaad: let's have a look at what is going on. down for equities. one bit of action -- a huge amount of action i should say is the steepening of the yield curve in the u.s. and how we have seen yields on the 10 year propel higher. let's get to the latest action with mark cranston. yields of 1.3% now. the question of the day is how far will those treasury 10 year yields actually go up? mark: certainly the mood seems to have changed slightly. last week it was slightly rising . everyone was happy and that was

helping boost stocks to record highs. overnight we have seen a slight switching of that momentum and people are starting to think treasury yields might be rising too quickly. they are already starting to eat into the mood on equities and are not quite as good as they were. it is nothing too serious yet, but it does get people looking at their long-term charts to see where treasury yields could be heading. on the 10 year, it looks as if in the 1.5% area is a nice, round number, but it also was the breakdown point for yields back in february last year. certainly some traders will be eyeing 1.5% as the next level for serious support on bonds. if we do travel in that direction, we could find equities are under a bit of a cloud for a couple weeks until we get there. we may well also get speakers

from the federal reserve trying to calm the bond market, because they don't want to see yields rising too quickly either. they have angered short-term rates near 0% -- anchored short-term rates near 0%. it wouldn't be too surprising if we hear from some of the senior people that the feds are trying to calm people down and remind us inflation will not be an issue for some time yet. rishaad: part of the collateral damage has been the yen. we had a stunning fall, much to the delight of the bank of japan. tell us about what forecasts are next for the japanese currency. mark: this is partly related to rising u.s. yields, but also yen weakness across the g10 space. that is also a reflection of the fact there has been a good risk environment. the so-called risk-on trade has

been prominent. you are seeing the yen weakened against the australian dollar and british pound, a strong sign people are using the yen again as a funding currency. it is not entirely a negative thing. it partly reflects people having a good stance on risk assets. rishaad: thank you very much, mark cranfield. check out bloomberg's market live blog and see how your money is behaving itself. quick check on what is going on with japan. we've got export numbers earlier. nikeei 22 -- nikkei 225 1/10 of 1% down. shipments to china surging. a quick look at those movers.

companies like toyota down at the moment. softbank shares are surging. tamatsu, a major exporter seeing record highs. this

haslinda: it's 10:29 a.m. in hong kong and shanghai. first word headlines. u.s. oil production is said to have fallen by nearly one third as an unprecedented cold blast freezes operations across the central united states. sources say that is a drop of about 3.5 million barrels per day. production in america's biggest oil field in texas is said to have plummeted by up to 55%. temperatures there fell to -19 celsius, the lowest since 1989,

although there are signs of improvement later wednesday. a company agreed to pay more than 23 million u.s. dollars a year for use of content. saying a final agreement could be struck in the next two weeks. australia's parliament is considered to consider world first legislation this week that would force digital giants to pay for content. new virus infections hit key markets. the value of overseas shipments rose 6.4% from a year earlier, gaining for six straight months. even so, it was a slight mess on analyst estimates. a separate report shows machinery orders gained in december from the vias months -- the previous months. protests continue in myanmar as military files another charge

against the defective civilian leader. the generals again defended their coup, dismissing u.s. sanctions. the general says the army still wants to attract foreign investment and called on protesters to cooperate with the authorities. global news 24 hours a day on air and on quicktake, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. this is bloomberg. rishaad: the central bank governors saying it's too early to think about raising the policy rate even after inflation accelerated the fastest since two years. he told us current policy supports an outlook of economic recovery this year. >> there will be an upsurge in consumption because of the -- of course we had a significant fall

in consumption last year because of the pandemic. but we expect consumption to may grow 5% this year. >> what does that mean for your expectations on unemployed and underemployed? as of october, we are talking 8 million, roughly 9 million people. how does that improve this year in your view? >> unemployment will continue to improve. it was severely cut during the second quarter of last year, improved in the third quarter. if you look at quarter on quarter, it continues to improve. we are optimistic that as we open up the economy -- and the plan is to open up the whole economy, to go to the lowest quarantine level nationwide so

that, should there be a surge in some areas, it will be a village-level or town-level lucked out, not -- lockdown, not nationwide lockdown. we expect employment to pick up hand in hand with the economy. hopefully we will get the vaccine sometimes a -- some time next week. the plan is to vaccinate 70 million before the end of the year. that is the target. we are optimistic we are going to get there. the target is 70 million out of population of 110 million. david: if you use that threshold of 75%, and hopefully you are correct we get to herd immunity by the end of this year, i'd like to talk about inflation

here. the last number that came out was quite ugly, 4.2%. what's going on with inflation there? >> that is -- the recent uptick in inflation is due to rise in international oil prices and key food commodities such as meat and vegetables. that was brought about by the outbreak of the african swine fever and weather-related disturbance. we expect inflation to be elevated may be in the first half of this year, but it will taper off in the second half. we are optimistic it will still be within our target range of 3%, plus or -1%. -- or minus 1%.

inflation will be around 4%, at least for this year, but it will of course be lower than the 3% in 2022 as things normalize. david: the big story this week has been the re-inflation trend. i know it's not directly under the purview of the central bank what happens with markets, but when you look at valuations around the world in many financial assets, they are quite elevated. how does the central bank approach asset bubbles, and do you think we are near one? >> no, we have closely monitored not only the behavior of banks, but the rates associated with the banks. at the moment we are comfortable with the situation. as i said, we continue to

monitor. haslinda: that was the philippines central bank governor. we have breaking news. nestle saying it reached an agreement to sell its regional springwater brand purified water business and delivery service in the u.s. and canada to one rock capital partners, that in partnership with metropolis. this is to the tune of $4.3 billion u.s. dollars. national brands in crude -- include,. covina, not -- perrier, aquafina, not included in that deal. again, nestle reached an agreement to sell its natural springwater brand, purified water business and beverage delivery service in the u.s. and canada. rishaad: selling that to one

rock capital partners. a consideration of $4.3. coming up, tackling india's economic inequality. we speak on how the indian government can help its most vulnerable. this is bloomberg. ♪

rishaad: time for our regular focus on equality. this time we are turning to india, which has one of the highest proportion of underweight children in the world. that situation has been made only worse by the global pandemic. our next guest has been a critic of the modi government for not doing enough for slashing expenditure on food expenditure on its recent budget. let's get to jean dreze. thank you for joining us. tell us how this pandemic has affected equality, first of all. jean: the first point to notice is there is a serious livelihood crisis in india that continues today. there have been many household surveys by a number of

independent research institutes. the latest survey i am aware of in december 2020, they found formal -- they found informal sectors, before the lucked out, 15% have no job today. that is catastrophic. for those that still have a job, they earn about half of what they used to before the lockdown. that goes to work sectors in other contexts. we have to understand the clearances of livelihood -- the crisis of livelihood continues for a large sector of the population. inequalities are growing. the same surveys show it has

been much worse for those earning in the first place. there is growing inequality compounded by a number of other factors, including that many essential services that are important for poor people continue to be nonfunctional or functional at the low level. the childcare services are still closed. similarly, health care sector is affected by the covid crisis. private services largely, so they can be protected. these are the ways in which the

inequalities have grown. rishaad: when you talk about these people who have not got jobs or their incomes have been halved, many are breadwinners. you alluded they have children. those children suffer. these statistics in india about having so many underweight children also points to undernourished children as well. what is being done about that if anything in a meaningful way? jean: very little, actually. you are right to draw attention to children. children have been some of the main victims of the covid lockdowns. india is one of the most undernourished countries in the world. just before the lockdown, a survey brought out that the child nutrition indicators are stagnating in the five years that preceded the lockdown.

this was a time when the government should have been paying attention to children and do something to revive school and childcare services. instead we are seeing the child nutrition services have been cut by a significant amount. if you look at the overall budget of the ministry and childhood development, programs related to maternity benefits, it was cut by 20% at a time when the overall budget was increased by more than 15%. this is an extra ordinary attack on essential programs. this is the second time this happened. there were cuts immediately

after the modi government came in. the budget for school education has also been cut. an almost inexplicable lack of attention to children in the budget. haslinda: we are looking at extreme inequalities in india. 10% of the population controls 80% of the wealth. is the 100 or so -- if the 100 or so billionaires are willing, what role should they play? jean: you are asking me what role the billionaires will play, yeah? [laughter] well, i think they should first of all pay thei t -- pay their

taxes. i think the taxes on the rich should be much higher. income tax rates are very low. there is no wealth tax, no property tax, no inheritance tax. the first thing is they should pay their taxes. they should not raid the public sector banks. you can do things on a voluntary basis to support social programs and social initiatives. they are not doing this at all. they are trying to enrich themselves to the maximum, very successfully during this covid crisis. haslinda: the farmers, they are protesting. the new farm laws, in your view,

should they be implement it? -- be implemented? jean: i don't think so. the government has shot itself in the foot by claiming these laws are for the benefit of farmers when actually i think they are being brought on behalf of business and the greedy interests of large corporations. if you claim they are there for the benefit of farmers themselves when they reject them, you have no leg to stand on. i don't see the need for this result. there was a trend toward marketing before that. driven by the state governments themselves rather than bringing laws that create a strange

structure of marketing institutions under the control of state governments, violating the constitution of state government. i think it would be better to consolidate an earlier process. rishaad: we can also talk about gender inequalities being exacerbated. that also does dovetail into how those women could be more inbound in the system to help child poverty alleviation. that would in a way kill two birds with one stone. jean: yes. the survey that i mentioned earlier also bring up that women suffered most from the loss of earning. you are seeing a withdrawal of

many women from the workforce because there are no jobs. this is a serious issue because india has some the lowest rates of female workforce participation in the world. of course indian women do a lot of work. the rates of participation of women are the lowest in the world in india. this is a big fact of gender inequality. this is women at the mercy of men, their economic dependence on men. that exacerbates their dependence in many contexts. this is very alarming that not only have these workforce rates -- they are declining because of the covid crisis. there are many things that can be done for the combined purpose

of reviving the economic and addressing these inequalities we have been talking about. one, we -- one way to stimulating the economy in india is putting the budget in hands. i think these measures should have continued in 2021 in recognition of the growing inequality. i think this is something that was lacking in the recent budget. haslinda: jean, thank you for your insight. jean dreze, delhi school of economics honorary professor. still to come on the show, crown resorts facing another inquiry into its casino operations after

being deemed unfit to hold a gaming license in sydney. keep it here with us. this is bloomberg. ♪

haslinda: welcome back. crisis at australia's crown resorts is deepening. it is facing another inquiry

this time into its perth operations after they were deemed unfit to hold a sydney gaming license. what's the latest? >> as you said, crown resorts under siege by regulators in various jurisdictions where it operates casinos. today, the western australia gaming regulator recommended an independent investigation into the company's perth operations. that call stems from last week's inquiry that found that crown had been laundering money or facilitating money laundering at least for years at its properties, that crown was unfit to run casinos in sydney. we are seeing other pierced actions looking at the findings of the former judge that carried that investigation out, asking

what does that mean for crown's casino operations in our jurisdictions? perth called for an independent inquiry. crown faces a review of its license in melbourne, which is its flagship casino. rishaad: earnings are out tomorrow. what are we looking for? they will not be reflecting what happened in recent days. anything to do with forward guidance, i'm guessing here. >> the numbers are not going to be reflected tomorrow. we are expecting profit to be down close to 80%, a reflection of the fact of being closed to tourists, the big spending gamblers coming from asia. that is the story behind the numbers. what we could get tomorrow is some kind of guidance to what crown's plan is, its reform

agenda, more meat on those bones as to how it's going to get its license back in sydney, how it will be signed off by the regulators. they should have opened in december and have been on hold. there has been no short-term fix to that program. haslinda: now let's do a quick check of the latest business headlines. amazon has bought a sydney based e-commerce platform, a company that helps small businesses create websites in the way shopper fight -- shopify does. the owner saying in a post he is looking forward to working with amazon. no financial terms have been disclosed. jd.com is planning to spin off its logistics unit.

the proposed move will see jd logistics remain a unit of the parent company, which will retain a 30% stake. jd logistics may be valued at $40 billion. details for the offering are yet to be announced. jd.com jumping in new york. rishaad: let's get to markets. the asia-pacific as a whole. we've got the tokyo equities session on hold for lunch. down a fraction. hang seng turning tail and getting into positive terrain. take a look at some of the constituent movers here in hong kong. we've got a move of one quarter of 1% up. we do in terms of point movements adding 31 points to that index. 10 year yields coming off the

highs of one year at 1.3%. new york crude, wti just down after the 3.5 million barrels a day being cut off. a lot more on the way. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪>> it is almost 11 a.m. is singapore and shanghai. welcome to bloomberg markets: asia. rishaad: singapore calling for major structural change with low interest rates could lead to investing in the wrong areas. we hear more from the finance minister. also, energy prices remaining

strong as a big freeze in u.s. oil production by 3.5 million barrels. occidental declares the output plunging and assessing india's recovery on the covid-19 front with the country's largest hospital chain. go to market action. this is a day where we are seeing declines, but headwinds coming as we saw equities fall off a little bit towards the end. we did see treasury yields go up to 1.3%, the highest in one year. looking at turnaround for the hang seng in hong kong. the msci asia pacific index is coming back a little bit, off the lows of the day, as the kospi nas x in sydney. we have the open for the set.

the stock exchange of thailand down .1%. just edged slightly weaker, but still below the 30 handle right now. seeing a lot of this on a combination of a potential no confidence vote in the prime minister this week. most pundits suggest that is a remote possibility but it is causing some concerns. contracts for india in singapore pointing to a lower start of the trading day. haslinda? haslinda: here, singapore says it will rain in the budget deficit as the economy recovers, but will dig into government reserves towards a new stimulus package worth more than $8 billion. ministers admit the revival will be uneven, but say they must strike a balance between immediate needs and longer-term requirements. growth is expected to rebound to between 4% at 6% this year.

we spoke exclusively with the finance minister. >> it will be one of our biggest budget -- it covers a range of things, including the covid resilience package. for us to emerge out of this covid pandemic. it is not overpaid we must continue to provide support to continue to help our firms and workers in the worst affected sectors. haslinda: the budget for 2021. you talked about how singapore is also looking at the different scenarios. we are dipping into reserves for the second year running now. under what circumstances do you think you may need to dip into those reserves again this year? >> it depends on the trajectory

of the pandemic which will shape the trajectory of the recovery. even if the recovery is what we expect, i think we should be able to balance our budget. if the pandemic is more prolonged or the recovery is weaker than we had hoped, the global situation will be different. singapore is dependent on the global economy. at the same time, covid has accelerated these big changes that are happening. it is important for us to continue to invest to plan for the long-term. we will then look at whether we need to continue to use reserves to fund the long-term investment. haslinda: when you look at this budget, we have seen the full extent of the impact of covid-19. >> whether we have seen the full extent, we have not because i think the covid situation is still evolving.

i think the introduction of vaccines -- i hope vaccination is a big part of the global population. the global projections have been quite good. still, there is a cone of uncertainty. the depends if a large portion of the population is vaccinated. at the same time, it will require new round of vaccination. those are the risks we have to plan for. haslinda: the volatility we are seeing in the market because the performance is contingent. >> volatility will always be expected. that is the nature of financial markets. not long ago, we had the global financial crisis and the asian crisis. any investment must take into

account volatility. recent returns are always there. the question is how do we have a better diversified portfolio to ensure that we continue to get and able to ride out the market. haslinda: what remains the biggest risk in the world today? some say it is that management. your thoughts? >> i think we are in a very unprecedented situation. following the global financial crisis, we had a huge amount of quantitative easing. in this covid environment, even economists are quite divided as to whether it is right for us or whether it will catch up and end up with inflation. or the interest rate cycle has

returned. what will be the consequences? the jury is still out. my own view is that it is not just debt level, but what the debt is used to finance. if it is used to finance long-term infrastructure or for enhancing economic potential, i think it will be. but if it is used to build roads to nowhere, i think we will have to pay for it at some point. i think it is not just the debt level, but what we use it for is incredibly important. haslinda: that was the singapore finance minister speaking exclusively with bloomberg. let's get the first word news with vonnie quinn in new york. vonnie: hey. thank you. u.s. oil production set to have fallen by nearly a third as

unprecedented cold blast freezes operations across central states. that is a drop of about 3.5 million barrels per day. production and america's biggest oil fields has plummeted by nearly two thirds. temperatures fell to -19 celsius. though there are signs of an improvement later wednesday. google is a poorly agreed to pay more than $23 million a year for use of its news content. it is citing unidentified industry sources and sing a final agreement could be struck in the next two weeks. australia's parliament is set to consider world first legislation this week that would force social media giants to pay traditional media outlets for content. exports from japan accelerated in january even as new virus infections hit markets. the value of overseas shipments rose 6.4% from a year ago, getting for a second straight month and picking up on the 2%

climb. that was a slight mist on analyst estimates. a separate report shows machinery orders gained in december over november. bitcoin passed another record, briefly passing $50,000 as its dramatic rally roles on. the cryptocurrency now up more than 70% is the. ether also setting new highs. bitcoin from institutional investors and high-profile figures such as elon musk and paul jones. it traded at just a few cents a decade ago. global news 24 hours a day on air and on bloomberg quicktake in more than 120 countries. i'm vonnie quinn. this is bloomberg. rish? rishaad: we are watching treasury yields touching one year highs. yields could rise sharply in the

absence of central bank intervention and targeting 1.5% for the u.s. 10 year. we will discuss that next. on our way to the market open in mumbai. the focus shifting to indian health care. stay with us for that. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> what is the priority for keeping the lights on? >> oil, gas is not going away anytime soon. >> we really do need to have a broad mix of powergenerating sources. >> until we can reach the point that we had grid storage and battery reality, it is important that we not put ourselves in a situation. >> we need to make sure we are

smart enough to make those coexist alongside one another, while keeping a focus on improving our environment. >> this is a timely reminder for a wake-up call. yeah, we absolutely need fossil in the mix. it is about how we get them greener. rishaad: some of our guests weighing in on the u.s. energy crisis. let's bring in the ceo of global cio office, an independent investment advisor. gary, great to see you. let's kick things off with a look. this is a singular event with this arctic blast in the u.s., but overall, we have oil prices trending higher anyway. how does that affect what you've been looking at markets? gary: it is hard to make us nervous. equity markets had a very powerful run, particularly the last couple of weeks. the one thing we said that would bring this bull run to a stop

would be a very significant rise in interest rates in the u.s. that is what we are starting to see. that gets reinforced so that fear of hiring gets reinforced when we see this burst of inflation particular in the oil price. rishaad: that said, that could lead to other things and tomorrow inflation. are all the factors such as shipping cost and oil prices going up, particular on the commodity side of things, cost push inflation in the future, is this a bit of a red herring too? gary: i think a lot of the markets concern at the moment is do these transitory changes we are seeing when we see commodity prices or the pipeline inflation, that is going to be here until the summer and slowly disappear.

i think when you start to worry that maybe the world is short of things like copper, short of some of the other base metals, that we have maybe a mini energy crisis. this inflation lingers beyond the summer, then you will see markedly higher 10 year bond yields unless there's interference. rather than just being transitory, high yields means that equity markets and the rise we have seen are at risk. haslinda: gary, oil prices higher, commodity prices across the board. that means emerging-market currencies are well supported and the dollar depreciates from here. fair assumption? gary: it is a fair assumption. i think the only thing with this spike in inflation is a bit of a problem for global growth. i don't think it will.

i prefer to take your interpretation of it. the dollar has a backseat and depreciates against some of the emerging countries. th gai confidence, monetary policy remains relatively loose, and commodity prices will be helping gdp in asia. i ticket more of a positive and reinforces the markets broadly have of emerging-market asset since the beginning of the year. haslinda: how do you play the fx market right now? which are your favorite pairings? gary: i think the safest want to play against the dollar is probably sterling. the u.k.'s looking like it will emerge very quickly with its aggressive vaccination program. and the currency now might have had a bit of a rally but i do see it going forward in the next couple of months. the other one would be the safety and security of the swiss

franc and japanese yen. rishaad: the yen really underperforming of late. that's probably down to treasury yields more than anything else. sterling coming back with a vengeance. is it also done for u.k. equities which have really been beaten down because of all sorts of concerns, not just the coronavirus but brexit? gary: i completely agree. you look at the tenure track record of the u.k. market, there are many reasons it was gotten wrong. so many things have been discounted to bring the market down in both absolute and relative terms. one of the few markets that had a negative return over the last 12 months and the rest of europe. i do think equities are starting to see buyers with some big days

in recent weeks which suggests some of the institutional buying now is getting at a certain scale to keep this market moving higher. maybe not necessarily in absolute terms in the market environment we have at the moment. haslinda: we thank you so much for your insight today. plenty more to come on the show. hedge funds favor mega cap tech stocks in the fourth quarter, but warren buffett and his stake on apple. the analysis is ahead. keep it here with us. this is bloomberg. ♪ so you're a small business, or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot. how do you bounce back?

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rishaad: this is bloomberg

markets. the 13f's have been released which gives us a peek at what billionaire traders and some of the major investment houses are buying. a lot of funds have been adding to the microsoft holdings. we've got warren buffett going back on apple and the sovereign wealth fund investing in videogame makers. su keenan, give us a sense of the highlights. su: these are always closely watched filings. they give us a sneak peek into what the big trading boys are doing. and some key themes emerged. one of them, hedge funds favor mega cap stocks. microsoft was added by many funds. so as amazon, facebook, google, all big winners in the past year. getting into 2021. this reflects what was held at the end of the quarter.

it is presumed they largely have position still in these funds. some recent ipos, notably airbnb which is up 43% year-to-date. dash 48% year-to-date. those were big winners. and big banks also favor in the holdings. j.p. morgan chase, bank of america, citigroup. we always watch for warren buffett is doing, the oracle of omaha. his berkshire hathaway reduced its holdings in apple. that's in contrast to other positions investment funds have revealed in regulatory filings. it also showed it was in contrast to what buffett's company will was adding. they added shares of verizon and marshall maclennan which is an insurance company, also chevron. that is where they were going. what was really interesting, we focus so much on warren buffett, is this saudi sovereign wealth fund. it had $3.3 billion in game

makers such as take-two, electronic arts and blizzard. also, we learned what different headphones were in gamestop. maverick, one of them, had a significant position. haslinda: su, on the topic of gamestop, give us the preview on the hearings about to get underway before u.s. lawmakers. su: february 18 is the date of the hearing. it will focus on gamestop but hick have a copy such as shortselling, market manipulation, short squeeze, and the roles of kim of acacian of trading -- gamification of trading on social media. those topics were outlined on a memo sent by the house financial services committee to all the members. and volatile trading in gamestop is in focus. the stock rocketed to record

high to record high before collapsing, largely driven by online social media generated memes and messages that were on the reddit platform, among others. the committee's members raises questions about the need for regulation here. it also raises important questions about the efficacy about anti-market manipulation law. that will be drawing a lot of attention. the ceo of robinhood, the trading platform that was favored by so many of the investors in gamestop and these other touted stocks will be front and center in this hearing. back to you. rishaad: su keenan for us in new york. a look at the latest business flash headlines. softbank shares hitting their highest. rising fast the record they set during the dot com boom two decades ago. surge is being held by a confident stock market, as well

as record earnings of the vision fund. masayoshi son wants more of his portfolio to go public and the upcoming listing of a group could triple softbank's $3 billion investment. jd.com planning to spin off its logistics arm, applying for approval by the hong kong stock exchange. we will see jd logistics remain with the parent company which will retain a 50% stake. logistics may be valued at about $40 billion. details of the offering it to be announced, but investors seem to like the idea with jd.com's shares jumping in hong kong. haslinda: well, time for market reporter sophie kamaruddin. treasuries steady after tuesday selloff. what is the trade at td securities? sophie: i want to bring up what the securities global head of rate strategies, the regular

guest on bloomberg tv, has to say. a moving higher in yields can continue for now because bill rates are still at historic lows. td is maintaining the call for the 10 year to hit a high of 1.4 5% this year. putting out along with the u.s. fiscal package that is pending, that is likely to follow given the brakes that we saw above 1.30. also, the team is cautioning the bond selloff could result in a tantrum without a taper unless they see jay powell next week. rishaad: i think haslinda knows more about this than me. the latest budget -- yeah, i'm picking up on that. you interviewed the finance minister a short while ago. sophie will have a reaction here, no doubt.

sophie: yeah, following the announcement of the green bond plan, that is what i want to focus on specifically. we saw a jump in rates which has come up somewhat. 10 year swabs are above 1.37. the bond plan will ensure singapore will invest heavily on reserves upfront and expect that green bond develop will allow the swap spread widen to tight levels and lead to an adjustment, noting risk to their long-term rates forecast. for now, there is no fixed timeframe when it comes to issuance of these reebonz. estimating there will be 6 billion sing dollars worth issued per year over the next seven years. rishaad: sophie kamaruddin with the days morning calls. let's check in with with going on with the question of the day which is how far will treasuries, 10 year yields rise?

that is the question of the day. a lot of guests suggesting it could go as high as 1.5 in the u.s. we hit 1.3%. this is bloomberg. ♪

haslinda: we are counting down to the. open in india futures pointing to a lower, perhaps consolidation after the massive rally we have seen recently. it will begin making its fire tv stick as joins a flock of tech companies. it will partner with a foxconn subsidiary for the devices later this year. let's get the first word news

with vonnie quinn in new york. vonnie: thank you for that. new research suggests the pace of reported covid-19 deaths will drop sharply in the next month with u.s. rates falling more than 40%. the friction comes from the university of massachusetts in collaboration with the center for disease control. it would be the lowest since the end of november. also suggesting deaths will start to fall. protests continue in myanmar as the military fires against civilian leaders. the generals dissented their coup, dismissing the u.s. sentience and sing the seizure of power was in line with the constitution. a general says the army still wants to attract foreign investment and calls on protesters to cooperate with the authorities. president biden says he intends to recalibrate the u.s. relationship with saudi arabia and will emphasize rather than

the crown prince. it is a new sign how the administration is reassessing. in the first few days, the white house paused key weapon sales and launch new efforts to end the war in yemen. hong kong has approved of china's vaccine for general use with experts saying the shot has efficacy of 70%. the approval comes a month after hong kong okayed the vaccine developed by pfizer and biontech. hong kong's the a with astrazeneca waiting approval. federal reg leaders are stepping up the penny stock with stocks trading. fun such as gamestop saw more than one trillion shares change hands in december and january. an average volume this month is more than 6% than those levels. the sec last week suspended

trading after it soared more than 630%. global news 24 hours a day and on bloomberg quicktake powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts. i'm vonnie quinn. this is bloomberg. rishaad: let's have a look at this indian app which allows users to send a tweet like post. it has been popular after the modi government clashes with twitter. we do that with our tech reporter. why is it suddenly in the spotlight? >> the last few weeks, twitter has had several run-ins with the government over blocking some users for allegedly misinformation in terms of national security. those were the user supporting against the law. twitter agreed to block the

accounts but allowed some of them citing freedom of expression. after that the ministry such as communications announced they would be heading over to koo, that led to a huge spike of users for the tiny app. haslinda: how does koo differ from twitter? >> it's an app about one-year-old. it allows users to tweet, he calls them koos. seven indian languages besides english. it closely resembles twitter. in january, koo's daily users exploded about 20 times and its cofounder and ceo told bloomberg

news it is nonpolitical and want to take social media to the masses in a country where the biggest attraction of biggest internet users are not english speakers. the users may not be able to follow what elon musk or their favorite european club are saying but they can connect with fellow countrymen in their own languages. rishaad: is there any long-term impact or implications from this clash. saritha: twitter had $28 million from the indian app store and koo had 1/10 of that. it has some growing up to do but if it's numbers rise quickly this year, that presents a challenge for twitter's growth prospects in the country. the third biggest base of users

after the u.s. and japan. it is also a sign of escalating challenges for social media companies with governments around the world such as u.s. and donald trump and the rise of washington dc. the supreme court has asked the government as well as twitter how to curb toxic content and fake news. twitter is in a prolonged battle in india. haslinda: thank you so much for that. still to come, we stay with india. we will look at how india's hospital and health care sector is coping with the pandemic. don't miss our interview with the former hospital group md. that is still to come. this is bloomberg. ♪

rishaad: we are focusing in on india with the coronavirus cases in the country with nearly 11 million. 155,000 people have succumbed to the virus. india's largest hospital chain operating has been treating covid patients and providing

vaccinations. the third quarter net income coming ahead of analyst estimates. performance improves further. joining us now is the md suneeta reddy. thank you for joining us. give us a sense of this journey you have in the last seven or eight months. suneeta: it has been quite the challenge and journey -- challenging journey. when covid happened, there was more protocol. more than anywhere else in the world. i think we developed a rapid response team. part of what we did is really to understand what what was the protocols. we have the diagnostics so we have done over 250,000. we have diagnostics with the tests. we are looking to 2500 for covid

care. doctors and nurses to look after these patients. i think the first three months give us time to build up this infrastructure. our doctors, nurses. work with the protocols being described all over the world. all of us coming together, we did a really good job. looking at the mortality rate, 1.4%. new compare it to the rest of the world, we are in a far better place. going forward, we've also moved into homes. we were taking closer to the patient so they didn't have to come to the hospital. we did about 20,000 episodes where be looked after people.

rishaad: so, you have reduced the number of beds allocated to patients quite considerably. i'm taking that is good news as the virus is receding but we could have further waves. however. are you for that and tell me a little bit also how the immunization program is starting off as well too? suneeta: having allocated 2500 because we have about 1200 allocated for covid, the challenge is to do a physical separation between covid and non-covid, so that the non-covid work in happened. from being 50% to 17%. having been through nine months of covid and understood it very well, we understood how the virus progresses and i am quite

confident if the second wave happens, india will be prepared. this preparedness comes from to fax -- there is a certain level of ability. there is 46% herd immunity. 36% herd immunity. if you add the rise for the indian government, 800 million people in the next six months. if we do achieve these vaccination goals, i think india will be stronger and definitely well prepared for the second wave. haslinda: you're providing vaccinations in 27 centers along with the government. when did you expect the private market to start providing those jabs?

suneeta: our expectation is maybe march. not too far away. because i think we have the advantage of having manufacturing happening in india. there will be vaccinations available like a lot of other countries. we've obtained about 6000 people and allocated sites -- 2500 sites for vaccinations. a new public-private will open up which has the potential to cover more people. haslinda: 300 million by august, that is the target. is that achievable? are you concerned about the pace of vaccinations so far? suneeta: i believe it is achievable.

i do believe the public and private has to work together. i think that is happening across india. we have 27 of our hospitals have partnered with the government in this effort. there are many other private hospitals that can partner with the government. in terms of chain supply, all of this is ready. when the government decides with the outreach, i am sure we can exceed those numbers. rishaad: tell me about the budget, was it friendly towards the health care side of things, is it oiling the wheels of the immunization program? the other is, does it also give

you the impetus to expand the hospital group? suneeta: yes, it does. you look at the budget of allocation for health care it was quite significant in terms of 136%. the deeper question is to look at where the allocation has been raised. 67,000 was allocated which is very important because we are looking at a pandemic in primary health care. the focus of this budget was on primary health care.

the allocation from the cdc as well as investments. about 64,000 was allocated just for health care, sanitation and water. they're looking at the very beginning of how they start. with regard to vaccination, 35,000 was allocated for vaccination. haslinda: i want to touch on medical tourism. has that returned? because it usually accounts for 10% of your occupancy. suneeta: yes, you are right. i would say only 3% has returned and that has come back from neighboring countries. there are some startups that are being planned and have already arrived. i think it will open up fully in

march. rishaad: when did you see any window for that -- this is very lucrative aspect of the business to start coming back in a big way. suneeta: flights have not resumed so how do patients from overseas come? flights have not yet resumed. it's 10% of our total revenue. it is lucrative but patients have started coming from local markets and the united states. i think we are doing very well with 63% occupancy. rishaad: thank you so much for

joining us. the apollo hospital group. it's equal to $10 million. it's 100,000, just for clarification. indian markets having a look at the open, about two minutes of trading gone. looking at what's happening at the moment. that is the case at the moment. 1/3 of 1% lower. banks also producing a little drag for this market as we get further away from the record highs for these indian benchmark indices. that's a look at the open in mumbai. let's tell you what we have coming up on the program. talking about this robinhood trading drama. goldman sachs getting mainstream with a new investing app. we will hear exclusively from stephanie cohen next. this is bloomberg. ♪

haslinda: welcome back. goldman sachs is diving into the retail investing world, launching a new app for people who want to put as little as $1000 to work. stephanie cohen spoke exclusively to bloomberg.

stephanie: we want to be the leading digital banking platform and we are doing that through two different strategies. the one you have been talked about which is our markets, direct to consumer strategy. we've had landings, we've had savings. we had an insight platform which helps people manage their money and now we have invest. the idea is we can be someone's holistic bank. later this year, we plan to launch checking and we think that is the final step. it will not be the end of our product roadmap. we think by adding invest and checking, we can be someone's primary bank. the second strategy is we will take those capabilities and embed them in the ecosystem with our partners and things we are doing with apple. we have announced a partnership with gm. we think that is a wonderful complement to this idea of being someone's primary bank and it takes the best of goldman sachs in terms of investment advice and embeds that in the markets app. sonali: why etf's, why broader

markets rather than individual stocks? a lot of what we have seen with the democratization of the stock market like robin hood's retail investors picking and choosing. is there concern about that or is it a more scalable strategy to do it this way? how do you think about it? stephanie: we think about it this is where we are starting now. our research and data shows that the best path to maintaining and growing well over time is to invest in diversified portfolios. we use those same diversified portfolios across our wealth management business and using them inside of markets. you can view this as the first step in goldman sachs getting into investing for the consumer. sonali: there will be more changes ahead for you. seven weeks on the job, what are the changes you are making, what can we see next coming out of this platform? stephanie: a couple of things. this is a very exciting day for us to launch market and invest, but also an exciting day because

we had a new partner join goldman sachs. she joined us from strike, and before that paypal and capital one. it is really having this two-pronged strategy of having the direct to consumer market business and having a large partnership or financial cloud business. i think you can view that as one of the major changes. we have gotten to a point where we have a more wholesome platform. i talk about the fact we have lending and savings and now we have invest and soon have checking. that whole capability allows us to be someone's primary bank. as you mentioned, we will keep looking at other things on the roadmap. the way we think about it, before we launched markets, we talked to thousands of customers. we talked to 10,000 customers and they told us what they wanted. they wanted help managing their financial lives on their phone. that is what we are helping them provide. we are starting with the product we have and we will continue to invest. sonali: another question -- this is coming in an interesting

week. a hearing on thursday that involves robinhood. some major names in the hedge fund industry. we are getting news today that gamification is something regulators will be looking at, something they are worried about. how are you -- are you worried about this as far as investing more broadly for a younger generation? what do you think the regulators should be looking at? stephanie: i will leave that to the regulators. but i will tell you we are focused on helping people better manage their financial lives. there's a bunch of ways to do that. i will give you an example from the apple card because i think it is a really good example. the way the apple card works is that when you get your bill, there's a payment wheel and you get it on your phone. it is set at paying your full bill. it tells you the consequences if you don't pay your full bill and how much it will cost you in interest. in addition, it allows you to pay your bill multiple times per

month. we think there are bunch of smart innovations you can put inside of your products that help people better manage their financial lives. that is how we will think about it. rishaad: that was stephanie cohen. you can use all these different apps that are available to see what the world's richest people have been up to. take elon musk. he's been fanning the flames of reddit driven gamestop, etsy, shopify and bitcoin of late. elon musk's reign as the richest person was brief, about six weeks, after tesla shares dipped 6.4% tuesday. musk back into second place on the bloomberg billionaires ranking. [laughter] haslinda: second-place is not bad. jeff bezos back to the top spot,

reclaiming the title he held for more than three years until last month when musk took a brief reign. you take a look at musk's wealth, he added $100 billion last year alone. bill gates at $136.7 billion. rishaad: also, bezos and elon musk both have this interest in space as well. bezos announce not too long ago he would be stepping down as ceo of amazon itself, focusing on other projects. bezos with the exploration company blue origin as well as the washington post. for more welath tracking and analysis, bloomberg's of garbage can go to rich < -- bloomberg subscribers can go to rich , . people are buying bitcoin at prices that are "ridiculous" and

they will get burned and will not be coming back. don't miss our interview with the macro associates chairman later on. a couple of business flash headlines as well. citigroup unexpectedly losing its it mistakenly sent. the court saying the asset managers should not have been expected to know the transfer was an error. take a look at leading hong kong developer with the luxury department on the foothills for a record. another sign of the city's high-end housing market is recovering. a five bedroom home. it went for, wait for it, $59 million. equity markets recovering a little bit. hang seng into the lunch break

at the moment positive to the tune of .6%. just to say that is it for bloomberg markets. up next, we will be going to dubai and daybreak middle east. ♪

♪ emily: i am emily chang in san francisco and this is bloomberg technology. coming up, i deadly combination of cold and snow plunges millions across texas into darkness. a rolling blackout to contain an energy crisis. all the details and what can be done to prevent future emergencies with the ceo of a

texas-base